FINCHforum

My zebras won't touch boiled egg. What is the best brand of dried egg food to get them? They also won't touch fruits or vegetables that I have tried. These guys will only eat seed so what is the best brand of seed mix to get? I'm thinking about sprouting seeds to get them more nutrients. These guys are tough. I think they were neglected at the pet store.

You've only had them a short time. They will eat what you give them.
Don't let tiny little birds boss you around. When they're hungry, they will eat. Mix seed with fresh food and they will soon learn that other things taste good. If they are fed only seed they'll die pretty young. It's about as nutritionally balanced as eating only bread.

I'm not happy with any commercial seed mix. I mix my own. For zebras, you want a third canary seed, a third white millet and a third red millet. They won't touch much else. But to make a seed diet complete requires daily or almost daily servings of vegetables and fresh egg a few times a week. Packaged eggfood is really just sweetened biscuit, not good for them.

I feed Roudybush pellets. The birds will eat them if that's all they have in the cage, and they are nutritionally complete. They can be mixed with a few seeds to attract the finches to the food bowl at first.

Some birds will starve before eating pellets. Be sure there is always some seed available to them.

After visiting two stores I found some Quiko dry egg food and they loved it. Dundee was had his beak so stuffed crumbs were leaking out. When I got out of the shower they had already eaten most of what I gave them. I'm going to try lettuce again this weekend. I can't believe they wouldn't touch it before because my neighbor's birds love it so much they got in a tug of war over a leaf while I was visiting. Then they started trying to line their nest with it.

Can they eat carrots cut up like matchsticks? What about thawed frozen broccoli or does it have to be fresh? I have some broccoli and mung bean seeds I could sprout would that be safe?

Go to the grocery store and get a small shredder. Shred some carrot and if you have fresh broccoli, you can shave the tops and mix that in too. Or you can just cut a piece off and fasten it to something solid. Clip the lettuce to something solid like the cage bars. Mine love organic romaine lettuce hearts clipped to the cage.

HillbillyFinch You can add a little boiled egg to the dry stuff, they will learn to like the boiled egg too. Also offer greens like spinach and kale. Most finches love slices of cucumber. Just try different things. It takes a while, a bit of patience, but keep trying different things, they will eventually learn to eat a variety.